Chapter 4 - Sophie Was Hidden For A Reason
Daniel could barely take his eyes off the photograph.
Grace could.
She was still focused on Sophie.
“Why was she in the wall?”
Victoria wiped her face.
The answer had nothing to do with punishment.
That did not make it acceptable.
Earlier that afternoon, Victoria received a message from Rachel:
HE KNOWS ABOUT SOPHIE. KEEP HER OUT OF SIGHT UNTIL I CALL.
Victoria panicked.
Daniel was at a board meeting.
Security staff were changing shifts.
Victoria believed someone might enter the mansion.
The hidden compartment had once been a Prohibition-era storage space.
She had secretly used it to store Rachel’s evidence.
She put Sophie inside intending to leave her there only for minutes while checking the property.
Then a call from Rachel lasted longer than expected.
Grace found the baby.
Daniel’s anger did not soften.
“You put a ten-month-old child inside a wall.”
“I was scared.”
“You had security.”
“I didn’t know who I could trust.”
Grace looked at the tiny camera.
“And that?”
Victoria said it was a baby monitor connected to her phone.
Grace checked.
It was.
Again, the truth was more complicated than the first appearance.
Victoria had endangered Sophie.
But she had not placed the camera there to torture or spy on her.
Daniel asked who “he” was.
Victoria handed him her phone.
Rachel’s message came from a masked number.
Below it was a photograph taken that morning.
Sophie in her stroller.
Grace pushing her through the mansion garden.
Someone had photographed them from outside the gates.
Grace felt cold.
Daniel immediately called security.
The estate went into lockdown.
The flash drive from the box contained Rachel’s communications with Victoria.
Most were demands for money.
Some were warnings.
Then one video appeared.
Rachel Carter sat in a dark room.
She looked older than Daniel remembered.
“If you’re seeing this, Victoria finally stopped protecting herself.”
Daniel’s jaw tightened.
Rachel said Emily was alive.
But Rachel had not been the mastermind behind the disappearance.
Someone else arranged the hospital switch.
Someone who convinced her Daniel would use wealth and lawyers to take the baby.
Rachel had been frightened, postpartum, and vulnerable.
She agreed.
Later she realized she had trapped herself inside a crime.
The man who arranged it continued controlling her for years.
Rachel never named him in the video.
Instead she held up an old photograph.
Daniel recognized the man immediately.
Grace did too.
His portrait hung downstairs in the mansion library.
May you like
Daniel whispered:
“My father.”
